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Friday, July 27, 2012

Writing with a Co-Author: Leave Your Ego at the Door

I thought about what to
write about and finally decided that I was in a unique position to talk about a
specific topic that most authors probably will not experience--that is, writing
with a co-author. I originally wrote this piece was my friend, John Marco, but thought I'd republish it here as well. If this helps any aspiring authors who'd like to collaborate, then I'll be happy. Hopefully, this will save you from making some of the mistakes that we made starting out together.

I started writing with my
co-author, David W Small, in 2006. I was lucky to have such an awesome
co-author, but I’m a bit biased. You see, David is my brother and he has
traveled around the world while in the Marine Corps. With his military
background, I could be sure that any fight/battle scenes in our books would be
spot on.

Growing up we both enjoyed
the same types of books—science fiction and fantasy—and even into adulthood, we
would pass books back and forth on a regular basis. One day I was on the phone with Dave while he browsed the
latest books in SFF and he was complaining that every book available was
basically the same. I said, “we could write our own book,” and our collaboration
was born.

Now saying you’re going to
write a book and actually writing one is at opposite ends of the spectrum. As
any author will tell you, they’re heard that exact same statement from lots of
people, but actually following through on it and putting words to paper takes a
tremendous amount of time, energy and self-determination.

Our first book was Quest for Nobility, a fantasy based on
the distant planet Otharia. Our main characters were royal twins (brother and
sister). Surprising, right? Anyway, it made perfect sense for us. We’ve had a
loving relationship all our lives and it wasn’t hard to write these characters
and how they would react to the conflicts we would throw at them. We had a
general outline of the book and initially assigned each other a chapter to
write. Now that sounds reasonable, however, it turned out to be a disaster.

We turned out to be pretty
similar in our writing styles which meant that we included pretty much all the
same information in both chapters. Out came the delete button and thousands of
words went into the trash bin. So then we figured that we would write one
chapter at a time before we sent it to the other one for edits. That way we
both knew what was already in the chapter and could move forward with the next
chapter without repeating the same information. Still, it wasn’t all smooth
sailing especially when something was added that we both didn’t agree on. Our
mutual test was “if you can’t justify why something is included, then out it
goes.” Yes, you definitely need to leave your ego at the door and keep the big
picture in mind. You want to write the best book you can and sometimes that
means things got left on the cutting room floor.

So that should have worked,
right? Wrong! Do you know what happens when two people are writing a story
without a specific outline? It’s not pretty and ¾ into the book, we thought of
a fantastic tangent that we had to include in the book. That meant we needed to
go back to the beginning chapters again and rework them so that our new tangent
made sense. When we finally finished the book, we felt like we’d run a
marathon, but we weren’t done yet. After letting it set for a few weeks, it was
back for another round of edits. It’s amazing how much you see that needs to be
changed if you step away for a bit.
All in all, our first book was probably edited from cover to cover at
least 6 or 7 times before it went to our editor for the final edit. That’s a
lot of editing, but the book is now something we both are proud to put our
names on. This was also the book that nearly landed us an agent in 2008, but in
the end, it didn’t work out. The one positive thing we came away with though is
that we didn’t suck at writing! We could write an exciting action-packed
adventure and that was a huge boost for us.

Because of our experience in
writing Quest, we knew that we needed
more than a 10,000 foot outline. In the second book in the Otharia series, The Crystal Façade, the writing went
much more smoothly. We were getting into our groove and we had a much more
extensive outline to work from. That’s not to say that we don’t think of “cool”
things to add in along the way, we absolutely do, but at least now when we add
in an unexpected twist or another tangent we don’t have to backtrack to the
beginning and fix the plot. Even though we both know what the outline says, it’s
still exciting to see how it actually turns out especially when we both add in
little tidbits as surprises for the other.

Our newest release, Assassin’s Curse, the first book in a
new series, “The Witch Stone Prophecy,” was an absolute blast to write and
we have definitely gained our rhythm writing together. We are currently working
on the next book in that series and will then tackle the final volume in the
Otharia series.

Dave and I love writing
together. It is a fantastic creative outlet for us, but it may not be for
everyone. If you plan to write with a co-author, make sure you have compatible
writing styles. When Dave and I look back at our books, we can’t remember who
wrote what and that’s a very good thing!

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